Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

Dear Fory:

Intermittent charging is generally due to worn brushes. Or a bad connection. The armature spins for a while and starts charging. Over charging or undercharging means the average voltage is too high or too low due to poor regulation.

A regulator can be checked for opens with an ohmmeter, but if a resistor opens it stays that way. When a resistor is going bad it charges for a while then stops, but is not intermittent.

I did a Twin Six with such a problem and one of the of the wires on the brushes was loose. A little metallic epoxy solved the problem. They had been putting all sorts of regulators on it over the years.

Quote:

As a matter of fact, yes! I bought a 1960 Imperial in 1971 and not long after it developed charging problems. No one - including a dealer could figure it out. I found an auto electric shop that looked right out of a Chas Dickens story with the proverbial "old guy" owner. He looked at the car, dug into a pile of junk, pulled out a small braided ground strap and put it on. That was 40 years ago and I haven't had a charging problem since.

That's easy enough to check. Just wiggle the base while it is running. Or use a jumper wire. Sometimes the old plating on Packard screws loses conductivity.

However, Packard liked to run a dedicated ground wire for it's regulators depending on year.

To test the brushes ground out the small field wire on the generator. If it starts charging the problem is not the generator.

Thanks for the help!!!!

I've been tinkering with it more today. Grounding the field terminal on the gen lets its charge over 8volts at about 1500rpm. I found that when I put a little more tension on the middle coil in the VR (the current one?) it started charging more, but was over charging at almost 9v. I backed it off just a tad, and backed off the first coil a bit (voltage?) and it still over charges but not as high as before- about 8v... I don't have a good ameter, is there any other way to know what the middle coil is doing? If its within the right voltage range is all well and good? I just don't want to start frying things....
Thanks again!!!!!

I forgot to add:
Tim I may have described the problem wrong, intermittent isn't the right word I don't think.... It doesn't charge until its all warmed up, then charges until I shut the car off. Sometimes it just doesn't charge at all. I noticed today when I had the cover off that there is some scorch marks around where the thin copper wire from the cutout is soldered to the base... I'll try to get a pic to post. maybe that is related?